The ‘normal’ Cisco Nexus series of switches are datacenter switches that can bully all lesser switches into handing over their lunch money, especially the flagship Nexus 7000 Series, whereas most VMware admins and engineers know that the basic vSwitches that are used inside VMware are cute but very limited, basically Corkies used to link the outside world to the VM world somewhat intelligently but with no real control.

Now Cisco has addressed this issue by giving us the Nexus 1000V: a fully functional virtual switch (read: vSwitch replacement) that provides the same flexibility and manageability we network geeks are used to from the Nexus and Catalyst model switches. Almost 100% the same command line, configuration options and tweakability that you’re used to, but geared completely to seamless integration with your VMware infrastructure. It’s a sweet package and a very well-deserved winner of the Best of VMware 2008 award in the “New Technologies” category. All that and it’s Vmotion-aware and -integrated as well.

As a both a (Cisco fanboy) network engineer but also a VMware engineer and admin I see this marriage as the start of something beautiful. Let’s hope Brocade is working on a fully functional Fibre Channel virtual switch to really get the party started!

Update (26-Feb): As noted in the comment from Cisco below: “availability is tied to the next upgrade to ESX from VMware. Our target is first half of 2009″. So, still some waiting to do…damn   Thanks for the heads-up, Omar!